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tell them about the engagement. She’d thought they would be happy to know that her days of auditioning for bit roles and advertisements were over. They would no longer have to worry about her living alone in that sketchy apartment complex in Glassell Park. She was getting married, and to a wealthy, successful, famous director.
    Instead, her father had said, “But didn’t he have something to do with the death of that girl?”
    She had heard the way her husband had spoken to Clarence and to that television person on the phone. She knew she had no chance of changing his mind.
    She found herself twisting her wedding ring in circles, watching the three-carat diamond turn around her finger. She couldn’t help but think that he was making a terrible mistake.

10

    L aurie was exhausted by the time the 6 train stopped at her local station, Ninety-Sixth Street and Lexington. As she climbed the stairs up to street level, her new Stuart Weitzman black patent pumps still not broken in, she quickly reminded herself to be grateful for her freedom to ride the subway without fear, like everyone else. A year earlier she wouldn’t have dared.
    She no longer scanned every face in every crowd for a man with blue eyes. That was the only description her son, Timmy, had been able to offer of the man who had shot his father in the forehead, point-blank, right in front of him. An elderly woman had heard the man say, “Timmy, tell your mother that she’s next. Then it’s your turn.”
    For five years, she had been terrified that the man known as Blue Eyes would find and kill her and Timmy, just as he had promised. It had been nearly a year since Blue Eyes was killed by police in a thwarted attempt to carry out his twisted plan. Laurie’s fears hadn’t entirely died with him, but she was slowly beginning to feel like a normal person again.
    Her apartment was only two blocks away, on Ninety-Fourth Street. Once she reached her building, she gave a friendly wave to the usual weeknight doorman on her way to the mailboxes and elevator. “Hey, Ron.”
    When she reached her front door, she slipped a key into the top bolt first, then a second key into the doorknob, and then secured bothlocks behind her once she was inside her apartment. She kicked off her heels while she dropped her mail, purse, and briefcase on the console table in the entryway. Next was her suit jacket, which she tossed on top of her bags. She’d find time to put everything away later.
    It had been a long day.
    She headed straight for the kitchen, pulled an already-open bottle of sauvignon blanc from the refrigerator, and began pouring a glass. “Timmy,” she called.
    She took a sip and immediately felt the stress of the day begin to peel away. It had been one of those days when she hadn’t had time to eat or drink water or check her e-mail. But at least the work had paid off. All the pieces for Under Suspicion to cover the Cinderella Murder were coming together.
    “Timmy? Did you hear me? Is Grandpa letting you play video games already?”
    Ever since Greg was killed, Laurie’s father, Leo Farley, had stepped in as a kind of co-parent for Laurie’s son, Timmy. Timmy was nine years old now. He’d spent more than half of his life with only Mommy and Grandpa to take care of him.
    She couldn’t imagine how she would have managed to continue working full-time if it weren’t for her father’s help. He lived one short block away. Every single day, he walked Timmy to and from school at Saint David’s on Eighty-Ninth Street off Fifth Avenue and stayed with Timmy in the apartment until Laurie returned from work. She was far too grateful ever to complain, even when Grandpa allowed Timmy small indulgences like ice cream before dinner or video games before homework.
    She suddenly realized that the apartment was completely silent. No sounds of her father talking through a math problem with Timmy. No sounds of Timmy asking his grandfather to repeat all the favorite stories he had